Printing from my laptop.

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Rene T

Rene T

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I have a Brother printer and a Lenovo 500s touch laptop. The printer is connected to my PC with a wire. I'm having trouble printing certain documents.

I have word documents that I've created and stored on my PC. I have no problem opening them up and printing them.  I did print one to prove that it prints and it does.

The problem is when I try to print something from an EMail or a Web Site. My daughter needed to print her boarding pass to fly home tomorrow. I got onto Spirit website, logged in and pulled up the boarding pass. I then hit the print button, the printer turns on and starts making noise like it's printing  but it's not. All that comes out is a blank sheet with a line at the bottom with this:
File:///C:/Users/RENETO 1/AppData/Local/Temp/Low/67YGPI4S.htm            3/23/2018

Any ideas?  Go easy on me. I'm not computer savvy.

 
Have you tried using print screen instead?  It is obviously a setting issue, but not sure which one
 
You say PC (not Mac) so perhaps you might try the Snipping Tool to create an image file that you can save as a PNG or JPEG file.  That may print more to your liking.

 
What OS (operating system) does your laptop have?

What is this "print button" you're hitting, a physical button or an on-screen button?
 
The printer printed, but the content was not recognizable (not printable data).  That suggests that your PC lacks the processing program needed to translate the page content to printable data/command that your printer can utilize.  That could be a print driver problem, but more likely the lack of some image processing software in your computer. Hard to guess what that is, since you were getting "automatic" printing via a Print button on a page.  Those Print buttons are typically a combination of HTML and javascript, so pretty much magic to most of us (including me).

The actual file is tagged as "htm", meaning it is an html-formated page.  That htm file type is probably associated with your web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, etc), so my guess is that's where the translation for printing was supposed to take place. And did not. What browser do you use, and what program is associated with the HTM file type (you can see & change that in your Windows Settings under Default Apps). Might be a clue in there somewhere.

Meanwhile, try some of the alternative methods the others suggested.
 
I'll sometimes use donn's print screen suggestion when printing from a browser if I want to manipulate/crop/resize the result. I hold down the shift button while pressing prt scrn; This copies what's on screen to the clipboard. I then open an image viewing app and paste the image. Crop/resize and print.
 
Rene,
Try saving the file first. The open it and try to print. This works for should issues with websites.
The second suggestion would be to go to Brother's website and download the latest print drivers for your printer model.
ken

 
You might check out the Print Preview choice in the FILE menu. It shows what you can expect to see on the printer, and gives you choices of which page(s) to print, portrait or landscape, and a number of other choices, depending on the printer and on the software you're using.
 
Larry N. said:
You might check out the Print Preview choice in the FILE menu. It shows what you can expect to see on the printer, and gives you choices of which page(s) to print, portrait or landscape, and a number of other choices, depending on the printer and on the software you're using.
Click to expand...

I tried print preview and it shows a blank page.
 
I tried print preview and it shows a blank page.
Click to expand...

And that is exactly what was printed! Your PC cannot render the image in the print file.

One brute force approach that sometimes helps is to delete the printer from the system and then re-install. The process may find the missing pieces or links.
 
Only one page? If it shows blank, that's likely what you'll see. I know some web sites generate page feeds after a line or two at the start of a page, others do strange things, too. But so far they've pretty much been what the preview shows. Same with various documents in text, Open Office, html, etc.

So at least you should be able to experiment without having to send to the printer each time. Sorry that I don't know specifics on where blank pages might come from -- perhaps certain site don't want to be printed, and they can program all kinds of stuff hidden in a web page -- sometimes in documents too.

One other possibility is what was mentioned earlier about a driver problem. There are various "codings" to tell the printers what to print, and some printers can handle a choice of "codings." Postscript and PCL (various versions of each) are two of the more common coding mechanisms, so it might pay to check what coding your printer uses and be sure the program (print spooler or whatever) sends that type to the printer, not one it doesn't know.
 
FYI, I'm using Windows 8 and Internet Explorer.
I just tried my wife's laptop and was able to print. She uses Firefox for the browser. So at least I know the printer is OK. I'll see about getting a different browser installed. Not sure which one to use. I'll bring it back to Staples tomorrow and ask them to do it for me.
 
Rene T said:
FYI, I'm using Windows 8 and Internet Explorer.
I just tried my wife's laptop and was able to print. She uses Firefox for the browser. So at least I know the printer is OK. I'll see about getting a different browser installed. Not sure which one to use. I'll bring it back to Staples tomorrow and ask them to do it for me.
Click to expand...
My favorite browser is Chrome. I have been using it for over 10 years and I love it. No problems.
 
And I have nothing but trouble from Chrome and prefer Firefox.

We have to re-install dozens of Chrome browsers a week in my volunteer job.  Unfortunately some of our required web apps only work in Chrome.  (Dumb programming)
 
If I change over to another browser, will I loose all my favorites I have now in Internet Explorer?
 
If the printer had an ethernet option that might let all the computers use it.

My Konica Minolta laser printer was always acting flaky when I had it connected to my desktop with USB. Now that it's connected at the router using its ethernet port all my computers and even my phone have no problem printing.
 
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